Rotunda Hospital

The Rotunda Hospital, Dublin (Ospidéal an Rotunda in Irish) is the oldest continuously operating maternity hospital in the world, founded in 1745. It is the most active maternity hospital in all of Europe. The hospital delivers approximately 9,000 babies annually, and is the most central of the three maternity hospitals in the city. The Rotunda was named Maternity Hospital of the Year at the Irish Healthcare Centre Awards in 2016.

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The Dublin Lying-In Hospital was founded in 1745 by Bartholomew Mosse (1712-1759), a surgeon and man-midwife who was appalled at the conditions that pregnant women had to endure.[1] Initially located in George's Lane on the site of a recently closed theatre, the hospital moved to its present location in 1757, where it became known as "The New Lying-In Hospital", referred to today as the Rotunda, after the architectural feature. "Lying-in" is a reference to the old practice of postpartum confinement, when new mothers lay in bed for days or weeks after childbirth, to rest and recover.

Records indicate that around 1781, "when the hospital was imperfectly ventilated, every sixth child died within nine days after birth, of convulsive disease; and that after means of thorough ventilation had been adopted, the mortality of infants, within the same, in five succeeding years, was reduced to one in twenty".[2] This issue was not limited to the Lying-In-Hospital. In that era, ventilation improvement was a general issue in patient care,[3] along with other issues of sanitation and hygiene, and the conditions in which surgeons such as Robert Liston in Great Britain and elsewhere, had to operate.[4][5]Florence Nightingale famously worked on the design of safe and healthy hospitals.

Because it was a charitable institution, the hospital had several public function rooms in which fundraising activities were held. One of these areas was a large rotunda, after which the hospital is now named, but which is now a part of the Gate Theatre.

The Rotunda, as both a maternity hospital and also as a training centre (affiliated with Trinity College, Dublin)[7] is notable for having provided continuous service to mothers and babies since inception, making it the oldest continuously operating maternity hospital in the world.[citation needed] It is estimated that over 300,000 babies have been born there.[8] In 1889, the first caesarean section performed in Ireland was performed at the Rotunda.